Culturally Responsive Care in Practice: Bias, Blind Spots, and Reducing Harm for Black Autistic Children

In this session, licensed mental health therapist Maria Davis-Pierre joins host Greg Santucci to talk about culturally responsive care for Black autistic children and their families. Maria is the founder and CEO of Autism in Black, a Black autistic woman, and a parent of neurodivergent children, and she speaks from all three of those vantage points.

She traces the long and costly road to her own daughter's diagnosis and explains why so many Black autistic children are misread, misdiagnosed, or told to wait and see. Together they look at how bias, stigma, and adultification shape care both outside and inside the Black community, and what families can do to trust their instincts and ask for a real plan. Maria is also direct with white clinicians about sitting in discomfort, examining their own tools and spaces, and using their privilege on behalf of the families they serve.

Educators, therapists, and parents will come away with practical ways to prepare for appointments and school meetings, questions that surface a provider's experience and a child's real needs, and a clearer view of the blind spots hiding in everyday paperwork, goals, and materials. Grounded in Maria's clinical work and lived experience, this session is a candid, practical look at how to do less harm and build care that actually fits the child in front of you.